>>The reality of the Bible is that you can interpret it as you wish if you are a Protestant, according to God, for God has given you the ability to do so. That is the belief of Protestants. That is why there are over 33,000 different Protestant religious groups. Not everyone agrees on the meaning of the Bible. People tend to give the Bible the meaning they want to serve themselves.
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>I don't think that it is exactly correct to say the Protestants believe you can interpret the Bible as you wish. As far as I know, and mostly from reading Luther and other reformer's and Baptist literature, the common idea is that the New Testament is the interpretation of the Old Testament. In fact, if you do read both you see that what was said in the Old Testament books is not necessarily straightforward and most require interpretation, specifically in the prophets. (The Pentateuch does not require much interpretation since they are more historical books). The New Testament differs in that, specifically the Gospels and mostly the Pauline letters give the message straight without much room for interpretation. Except the parables of Christ, some of those which he did not specifically give the interpretation, although he did give the interpretation to many of them. I know, some people try to interpret his interpretation, but I would not take those very seriously.
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>That is also what Paul meant when he wrote in Romans "...and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery, which was kept secret since the world began, But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith"
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>So the idea is that those things that were kept secret and have not been fully revealed where explained all in the person of Christ at his coming, when he revealed to the Jewish nation (and later to the gentiles) what has been prophesied and written in the old times. So if a Protestant would in fact believe that he can interpret the Bible as he wishes, he would purposely contradict this idea, and that after the Protestant reformers claimed "Sola scriptura!".
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>It is true that there are lots of religious groups, but the main body of the Protestant church has a common way to read the Bible. It's like in politics, you have now and then someone looking for power and trying to bring up some populist ideas, and some of those do get a following, but if you look close there is not really much behind it.

I am speaking from experience, the words of college professors, theologians, and Protestant Ministers. What has created the large number of different Protestant religious groups is the way in which they interpret the Bible. In fact there have been a number of books written on this topic.

I have a friend who is Protestant and his experience is a good example of what I am saying. He belonged to a church for several years and then one day the minister read and interpreted scripture from the Bible. Members of the church objected and argued that the minister was incorrect. These members broke off from that church and formed a new church. This occurred two more times within one year and my friend went with the new groups each time.

There is a hierarchy within the Protestant Churches. We have the Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, and Baptist. When you travel within the United States and talk to people you will realize a number of things. One is that in some areas (the south for example) there are a large number of Baptists. Southern Baptists to be exact. They even have snake worshipers in the south, who are Baptists. These religious folks spend a lot of time and energy demeaning others and profess their superiority.